Junko Miyaji (宮地・淳子?, Miyaji Junko) is Naota's eccentric sixth grade teacher. Her students have given her the nickname "Miya-Jun" (宮-淳).
Debut[]
She is first mentioned by name over the intercom in the first episode before debuting in "Marquis de Carabas", where she talks to the class about cats.
In the novel, she is introduced in the novelization of "Fire Starter", where she made her students stay after school and had them debate about the recent string of arson fires.
Profile[]
She is a sixth grade teacher at Mabase Elementary School and is in charge of Classroom 6-2.
Miya-Jun seems to be constantly troubled by the shallower problems which Naota seems to create, such as the destruction of her car (which happens twice over the course of the series) or the terrible interruption of a lesson. Even on 'normal' days, however, she is pathetically inept: her attempt to teach chopstick usage to a generation of students raised on sporks ends with the revelation that she is unable to use them herself.
She can be viewed as symbolic of the ineffectiveness of educational institutions imparting any truly important or useful knowledge. Naota constantly characterizes the adults around him as "unable to grow up". In his mind, Miya-Jun's inability to act like a normal adult (similar to his father, grandfather, Ninamori's father, Amarao, and many others) confirms his theory. Adults like her are contradictions in Naota's life; he wants to become an adult, but the adults around him don't act like adults at all.
A recurring gag is Miyaji's car being destroyed by a Medical Mechanica robot. In episode 3, her new red Volkswagen Golf Mk1 is crushed when Canti jumps down on it from the school's roof. In episode 6, she has replaced the car with a Volkswagen New Beetle, but it gets eaten by the Terminal Core.
In the novelization of "Fire Starter", Naota told a story about how Miyaji scolded one of the female students for being somewhat absent minded after the girl was put in charge of the class activity. The girl continued to cry in front of everyone, causing Miya-Jun to stand next to her and sing "The girl who shed crocodile tears was a geisha girl" while clapping. She then tried to justify the bizarre song and dance to her students by claiming that her grandmother would sing that song to her whenever she cried as child, though Naota and the others did not believe that the student was crying fake tears in the first place.
Appearance[]
Miyaji appears incredibly young for a teacher, both as a result of her natural appearance and youthful style. She keeps her short black hair up in messy pigtails or a messy bun with brown ties. By her temples, various clips, including a light-blue star, keep the rest of her hair out of her face. Her long, thin black eyebrows arch upwards over large green eyes with small eyelashes. Her earlobes are studded with a pair of small, light-blue orbs. Her outfit changes with every appearance, but is consistently casual overall.
Personality[]
She has a very happy and care-free personality when things run smoothly, but quickly gets frustrated if her students or the topic being taught are difficult. She tries to teach her students life skills, but seems to overestimate her abilities when picking what to teach. Once, when some of the boys were passing around a porn magazine, she confiscated it and went through a series of cartoon-ish emotions upon looking at it before angrily banning outside reading materials for the whole class. She is notoriously unlucky in regards to the events of FLCL, losing her car a number of times to robots and getting reasonably upset as a result.
In the novel, Naota described her as a "young, energetic, vitamin-filled person", who acts like a spoiled princess that names all of her stuffed animals. He also mentions that while she is clearly enthusiastic about teaching, she is not very good at it and would end up leading her students astray if they actually followed what she taught.
Gallery[]
FLCL[]
Concept Art[]
Promotional Art[]
Trivia[]
- The chalkboard she teaches in front of is usually covered in messy art, often of cats, and kanji.
- The etymology for her last name can be translated as "shrine, palace" (宮, miya) and "ground, earth" (地, ji)
- Her first name can be translated as "pure" (淳, jun) and "child" (子, ko)
- While it is not explicitly stated that this would've been Miya-Jun, a scrapped idea present in an early document proposal found in The FLCL Archives suggests there would be a newly appointed teacher who is described as "overly enthusiastic and doesn't get anywhere" after the previous fainted from having a black creature emerge from their head.
- Additionally, another scrapped idea would've involved this same teacher being led into the woods by a white cat who is rumored to tell the truth to those it meets, later on she discovers an aborted fetus at a small shrine inside an empty jam jar. It should be noted that there are also rumors that whoever meets the forest cat-god die.
- Jessica Straus, who voices Miya-Jun in the English dub, was also the voice actress for Mayor Ninamori's Secretary in "Marquis de Carabas", Female Operator B in "Full Swing" and a hairstylist in "Brittle Bullet".